Chapter 536 — Forging Iron Before the Foe
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
On the Black Tiger God's back, Sang Hua was frantic with dread. This was the enemy's lair — the Black Tiger God had brought them charging into it. Could he have turned traitor?
"But he is a god. There would be no need for him to trick us into coming here. If he wanted us dead, he could simply seize us or swallow us whole."
Even as she reasoned thus, panic still gripped her heart.
This was, after all, the enemy's camp.
The demon race had dwelt in Taihuang Heaven for ten or twenty thousand years. In Sang Hua's memory they had always been savage and vicious, capable of every evil. To fall into their hands — even to die would be a mercy.
And now they stood in the very heart of the enemy's camp.
She looked around. Countless demons ringed them with predatory eyes, their numbers so vast they made the heart quail. They were like savage beasts lying in wait, ready at any moment to pounce and tear them limb from limb.
Sang Hua's palms ran with cold sweat. Her gaze fell upon one demon god and could not be torn away.
That demon god was bare-chested, his skin bearing none of the ordinary textures of flesh — only coil upon coil of flame patterns winding across his whole body.
His two eyes were uncanny as well, like two tongues of fire dancing in their sockets. Seeing her look his way, he smiled. "Little girl, I have seen you before. Your family died at my hand, did they not?"
Sang Hua clenched her fists, her eyes tightening, and said nothing.
Shen Mu glanced at that demon god. His pupils suddenly contracted as he recalled the encounter on the night he first met Sang Hua. That night, the heaven-demons had attacked the city. Sang Hua's father had gone to hold off the demon gods and been caught in the siege. One demon god had broken into Sang Hua's home and slaughtered most of her family.
The scene had been horrifying beyond words. Though he could not see Sang Hua's face, he had felt even then the terror and fury of the long-braided girl.
Shen Mu had fled and hidden with her, and only so had she escaped with her life.
At that time, Shen Mu and Sang Hua had dwelt in two different worlds. He had not seen the demon god's face clearly. But now, from Sang Hua's expression, he could confirm that this bare-chested demon god before them was the very one who had butchered her family.
"The architecture here is very like our Ruins. In the Ruins I saw many relics from the Kaihuang era, and they bear some resemblance to these palaces."
Shen Mu suddenly smiled. "Little Sister Sang Hua, perhaps your Taihuang Heaven and our Ruins are connected somehow."
He meant to draw the girl's attention elsewhere, but Sang Hua was too heavy-hearted to catch his words.
The Black Tiger God picked up the thread. "Taihuang Heaven was always Kaihuang's domain, the first of the Thirty-Three Heavens. So it is no wonder the buildings are similar."
"Taihuang Heaven was Kaihuang's domain?"
Shen Mu was greatly shaken and blurted out, "And what is this Thirty-Three Heavens? Has the Kaihuang era not already ended?"
The Black Tiger God said in confusion, "The Kaihuang era ended? Since when? Kaihuang still lives. How could the Kaihuang era have ended? So long as Kaihuang lives, the Kaihuang era shall never end!"
Shen Mu's mind was thrown into chaos. His heart pounded wildly. The Kaihuang era had not ended!
What shocking news this was.
Yet he at once recalled his past encounters in the Ruins and in Fengdu. The Heavenly King statue in the Temple of the Heavenly King, by Kaihuang's decree, had ridden a dragon qilin to slay the Dragon King, and King Yama of Fengdu had also mentioned that Kaihuang had gone to the Land of No Sorrow.
Both incidents revealed that the Kaihuang era should not have ended.
But to hear the Black Tiger God speak it aloud still left him profoundly shaken.
"Shen Mu, your mind is unsteady. It will go badly for you when it comes time to fight."